The present invention relates to bags formed of thin flaccid material for containing merchandise and the like, and more particularly to bags of this type with handles to facilitate carrying the bag after it is filled with merchandise.
For customer convenience, manufacturers of various types of merchandise are packaging the merchandise in bags which have handles formed thereon to facilitate picking up the bag and carrying it away. The competition for sales of the merchandise usually packaged in bags of this type makes display of the bag at the point of purchase important. It is desirable that the surface area of the bag be attractive to draw the customer's attention and that the surface area be receptive for advertising copy to inform the customer and promote the purchase decision at the point of purchase. Therefore, it is important that the handle only minimally obstruct the consumer's view of the bag and that it not otherwise interfere with the display of the bag at the point of purchase, yet it should be clearly visible to purchasers so that they will utilize the handle for their convenience. These bags should also be cost-effective to produce and lightweight, and therefore, they are usually made from a thin plastic material, such as polyethylene.
A common type of bag of this nature is a single-walled plastic bag which is constructed very simply by folding a length of material evenly onto itself about a centerline and then sealing together the two opposite side edges, usualy by conventional heat sealing equipment employed during the bag assembly process. The edges opposite the fold are left open to permit the loading of merchandise into the bag. Handles are typically formed in these bags by cutting openings into the top of the side wall panels formed when the length of material was folded onto itself through which the hand may be inserted for carrying the bag. This method presents a simple and cost-effective method of forming a handle, but a drawback is that the strength of the bag is impaired. The plastic material about the handle openings is subject to tearing during carrying if the merchandise loaded into the bag is relatively heavy of if the bag must be carried for an extended period of time. Another type of bag of similar construction with an open top is provided with pull cords made of either fabric or plastic material disposed between layers of the open end of the side walls folded back onto itself at the top thereof with the folded back top edge being heat sealed to the adjacent side wall to form a channel in which the draw cord runs. The draw cord then serves as a handle after it is drawn to close the bag. This exhibits improved strength characteristics in comparison to the previously described bag but has significantly increased production costs and may pose stacking and storing problems because of the bulk of the bunched material when the cord is drawn to close the bag. Additionally, this bag does not have the functional advantages of bags which are sealed completely at the open end to protect the merchandise carried in the bag. Another type of handle arrangement often provided with bags of this construction is to secure separate handle elements of hardened plastic to the side wall panels. This type of handle arrangement also has the disadvantage of increased production cost, and in some cases, may be difficult to stack and store because of the presence of the projecting handles.
Another type of bag construction results in a rectangular shape, which is particularly cost effective to product in that excess bag material is minimized because the bag is intended to conform to the rectangular shape of the particular merchandise packaged therein, such as folded diapers, blankets and the like. The bag also presents a smooth, neat appearance on which advertising copy can most effectively be displayed for customer viewing. In this respect, the bag is also desirable for packaging flowable or particulate merchandise such as peat moss, grass sead and similar items which will cause the bag to assume its rectangular shape when filled. To form this rectangular type bag, it is conventional practice to form one end face of the bag with a gusset that permits such end face to readily assume the desired rectangular configuration. The other, open end of a bag of this type of construction is also sealed across the surface of the merchandise such that the bag loaded with merchandise presents a generally cubic shape. The open end of the bag can also be formed to an excessive length so that it can be twisted into a pigtail to close the bag and serve as a handle for carrying the bag. This arrangement is disadvantageous because the pigtail is bulky, making the bag difficult to stack one upon the other, and the vertically extending pigtail is ergonomically awkward to grasp in comparison to a horizontally extending handle arrangement and has a tendency to slip unless grasped tightly. This problem is exacerbated by the generally thick texture of the plastic material forming the pigtail and by the weight of the bag filled with merchandise. Like the draw cord type bag, the pigtail-type bag does not provide the same product integrity that is usually obtained from bags having a fully sealed end.
In one effort to overcome the disadvantages of pigtail-type bags discussed above, some gusset-type bags have been made with separate handle strips that are secured to the bag during the bag forming process. In one form, the handle is simply a strip of material that extends across the end face or top panel of the bag with both ends being heat sealed or otherwise secured to the opposite side panels of the bag. In another form, the handle includes an integral rectangular attachment strip and a handle portion extending across opposite sides of the rectangular attachment strip so that when the attachment strip is secured, such as by heat sealing, around the entire periphery of the bag adjacent its end face, the handle portion will extend across the end face of the bag.
In both of the foregoing gusset-type bags with handles, the handle strips are somewhat longer than actual width of the end face of the bag so that the handle strips do not lie close across the end face of the bag and therefore may not present a neat tailored appearance when the bags are filled with merchandise and displayed at reatil outlets. More importantly, unless the bag itself is made of a double-ply laminated construction, which is generally quite expensive to produce, it is not feasible to include graphics, advertising, copy and like in the the area at which the handle is actually attached to the bag, and, therefore, there is a significant loss in available space on the bag for such printed material. More specifically, in the double-ply laminated bag construction, the ink for the graphics is sandwiched between the two plys and therefore is not significantly affected by heat sealing the handles directly to the walls of the bag where the graphics appear. However, as indicated above, this double-ply laminated bag construction is relatively expensive to produce, and therefore it is generally used only on production runs where very large numbers of the same bag are to be produced.
On the other hand, when bags are to be produced for the private label market, where production runs consist of a much smaller number of bags for a particular customer, it is not economically feasible to use the double-ply construction, and the graphics are presented directly on the exterior surface of the single-ply bag. In this construction, which is less expensive to produce, handles cannot be attached directly to the exterior surface where graphics appear because the heat sealing of the handles will deface or mar the graphics to an extent that the aesthetics of the bag, and perhaps the message intended to be presented by the graphics, will be adversely affected.
Another disadvantage of the two above-described outside-handle bags is the increased production costs that are required to manipulate the handle material so that it is disposed properly with respect to the bag to which it is to be attached, and to then seal the handle to the bag, all of which is believed to require special equipment.
Finally, in the form of the bag that utilizes a handle extending across a rectangular attachment pull, there is a significant amount of waste resulting from the fact that the polyethylene sheet material from which the handle is cut must have a pattern that results in the rectangular attachment piece and the crossing handle piece, and this pattern necessarily includes portions of the sheet material that are cut out and lost as waste during the handle forming process.
Another known prior art bag is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,539,705. While this prior art bag and the bag of the present invention are similar in that they are both gusset-type construction bags, the production process of the prior art bag involves inserting the folded handle strip into the gusset of the bag and heat sealing the strip internally to the adjacent overlapping portions of material forming the gusset. The bag of the present invention is simpler and more cost-effective to produce as the folded strip is disposed about the wall panels of the bag, externally to the gusset and heat sealed to the outside surface of the wall panel at greater production speeds than the inside gusset handle.
The present invention provides significant improvements over these conventional bags and is cost-effective to produce. The bag of the present invention includes a single handle which is automatically carried to the top of the bag and extends across centerline of the top panel of the bag formed by the gusset when merchandise is loaded into the bag. The handle therefore is immediately obvious to the customer and can be readily grasped and held for carrying without the difficulties associated with the prior art bags which have large loop handles just discussed. Finally, the bag of the present invention is simple to construct, which adds little to the production costs of the conventional gusset-type bags without handles.